Compsognathus

Compsognathus is a genus of small, bipedal, carnivorous theropod dinosaur. Members of its single species Compsognathus longipes could grow to around the size of a chicken. They lived about 150 million years ago, during the Tithonian age of the late Jurassic period, in what is now Europe. Paleontologists have found two well-preserved fossils, one in Germany in the 1850s and the second in France more than a century later. Today, C. longipes is the only recognized species, although the French specimen was once thought to belong to a separate species named C. corallestris.

Compsognathus

Zach Tirrell from Plymouth, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
elegant jawPBDB
Sits inside
CompsognathidaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, insectivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB
Length
0.65 mWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 9.8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 154.8 Mya and 145.06 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 4 of 4 occurrencesLate Jurassic155–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–153 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153–153 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155.3 Mya144.6 Mya

4 occurrences of Compsognathus on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Alcobaça — 39.70°N, 8.80°WPainten — 49.02°N, 11.98°E

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The named rock units Compsognathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Compsognathus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Compsognathus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

175 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Compsognathus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

4 references

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Compsognathus

Credit
Zach Tirrell from Plymouth, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCompsognathidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wagner 1861